Ani’s Raw Food Durian Essentials: 4 min, 39 secWatch video
I’m in love with durian. I love the flavor, texture, and yup, even the scent. So, I flew myself to the other side of our planet, all the way to beautiful Bali, Indonesia, to visit during their 2 month durian season. There, I was able to enjoy a fresh durian daily, and even visited a durian farm where I ate fresh durian straight off the tree. This was the highlight of almost all my gastronomical adventures in life.

Many people in the USA have not yet seen or tried durian fruit. So, I shot this video in Seminyak, on the West Coast of Bali, as an introduction to the King of Fruit. I hope this video may encourage you to give this delectable fruit a try.

A delicious save-the-fish style pate made with almonds and cashews, flavored with ginger and lemon. The orange salmon-like color comes from sweet carrots full of beta carotene. Use this pate inside nori rolls, lettuce wraps, and scooped on top of a bed of greens.

Almond Veggie Pate Nori Rolls(Makes 4 servings)

FILLING

1 cup almonds

2 cups cashews

1 tablespoon grated ginger

1 clove garlic

3 carrots, chopped

1/4 cup yellow onion, chopped

1/2 cup raisins

1 teaspoon sea salt

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoon lemon juice, from 1/2 lemon

WRAPPING

4 sheets nori, or 8 sheets if too thin

4 cups spinach leaves, washed and dried

DIPPING (optional)

Soy Sauce or Nama Shoyu (raw) or Braggs (gluten-free)

Wasabi

To make filling, process almonds and cashews into a powder, and set aside.

Pineapple Ice Box Dessert(fills one loaf pan to make about 8 servings)

Crust

1 1/2 cups cashews

1 vanilla bean, scraped

2 Tablespoons honey or agave syrup

Filling

1 1/2 cups cashews

1/3 cup honey or agave syrup

1/4 cup coconut oil, liquid

2 1/2 cup cored and chopped pineapple

Make crust by processing cashews into small pieces with vanilla. Add honey, and process to mix well. Sprinkle half of the crust mixture into bottom of a loaf pan,

To make filling, in high-speed blender, blend cashews with honey or agave and liquid oil into a smooth cream. Into a mixing bowl, toss cream with pineapple to mix well. Scoop into loaf pan. Top with remaining crust, and gently press down.

One thing we need more of in the USA are cultured foods. In Korea, we have fermented and probiotic rich pickles like kimchi and sauerkraut, which aid our digestion while helping rebuild healthy bacteria we’ve destroyed through stress and antiobiotics. Fermented raw foods are the highest form of living foods. The probiotics and friendly bacteria predigest this food for us.

For breakfast today I enjoyed local organic blueberries topped with a kream i made by blending coconut meat with water kefir.

To make your own kefir kream, just scoop the meat from 2 Thai baby coconuts into your blender. Add about a 1/4 cup of your water kefir, and blend to mix smooth. Scoop kream into a container, leaving at least 1/3 of the container empty. Don’t fill up all the way, it needs room to expand.

Cover kream, and leave out (I leave it on top of my fridge where it’s warm) overnight to ferment. You can see how the fermentation creates bubbles in the kream, below.

kefir kream

Store in your fridge, and enjoy on salads, soups, as a dip, in smoothies, and on fresh fruit as you would any yogurt.

It can sometimes be a struggle to find a vegan option on an American airline. I was surprised that my flights in SE Asia on both Singapore and Silk Air both offered numerous vegan options, from Asian vegan to American vegan, and also offered a RAW FOOD option!

Cabin air pressure in flight is lower than air pressure at sea level, which means we have less oxygen being carried in our blood. Cabin pressure makes our digestion more challenging due to a 30% increase in gases trapped in our body. And, flying is dehydrating. I try to drink a liter of water for every hour of flight time.

I say a raw food platter should be served to everyone on every flight. It’s full of water, oxygen, and easy on the digestion. This isn’t rocket science, but simply common sense. Hopefully, this vegan and raw meal also helps offset my carbon emissions a little bit….